Reply to when schools focus on the wrong things (from a teacher)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I'm the principal, former reading specialist.

Again, if the lower grades are operating properly, there would only be a handful of kids or newcomers who cannot decode.  And if it is only a handful, then the CLASSROOM teachers can remediate.  This is what happens in my school.  Just as lower elementary teachers have 4-8 reading groups per classroom, intermediate teachers and upper grades do too.  Maybe not all in the same room.  But between them all, they do.  They are masters at collaborating, and they have a small section each day where they exchange kids and provide short, targeted instruction aimed at remediating those issues.  15 minutes per day, 3 days a week.  What has happened is the few who need decoding help, fluency help, have grown tremendously.  Those who need comprehension and language are also growing, albeit more slowly, because those are deeper issue.  Our reading specialist does work with tier 3 kids, but the classroom teachers have to work with tier 2 kids and then they all give a second round of instruction to the tier 3 kids.  It works.[/quote]

So, this is the kind of discussion I'd be thrilled to have at our professional development meetings.  How can we best structure our school day to allow for decent remediation?

In our school, we have 3 fifth grade classes as they don't all teach Language Arts at the same time.   2 have L/A in the morning and 1 in the afternoon.   Ditto for 4th and 3rd grade.  I'm the ESOL teacher and my students are often in at least 2 sometimes three classrooms per grade level.... as are the SPED kids.   No one exchanges students for decoding remediation or any other skills based remediation or instruction past occasionally the 1st grade level.   Our upper grade teachers very seldom even pull small reading groups but that's another story.

However, when we get together for professional development, what we are instructed to do is to ask each other questions about data.  We are told to stay away from asking questions about instruction, time for instruction, type of instruction, etc.  OP, are you being told the same thing?[/quote]

Yes! That's the crux of the issue! I would love to have the types of discussion that the principal PP is talking about. But instead it's all about data and other bullshit questions that achieve nothing that we're actually aiming to achieve. Plus our reading specialist is treated like a de facto administrator because our principal and AP are either in meetings or dealing with other issues within the school, so she's called on to put out fires all day instead of being able to work directly with students. -OP[/quote]

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